Win-win? This would be a ‘win-win’ if the project hadn’t originally been approved or was seeking a variance or up-zoning. Instead, the production of housing was delayed, MEDA was enriched and the developer was extorted.

You are out of your damn mind if you think that supporting extortion is a fair trade for the hope of preserving cultural plurality or embracing the arts. I completely agree that negotiations between developers and neighborhoods are an important aspect of progress, but not when throwing a fit is followed by a having a check cut (or discounts or land acquisition or etc) is considered a positive outcome.

It’s ok to shake people down if they make more money that you do or run a seemingly profitable business? Should the same logic be applied to dinner at an expensive restaurant or art gallery? “Give me a discount or I’ll sue you or run you out of the neighborhood!”

I disagree. I’m not crazy about Calle 24, but this is a good result for our neighborhood. Having such a dedication to the Arts for the ground floor will also be an excellent addition. Now we have to speculate who this organization might be – Southern Exposure perhaps?

I don’t disagree that negative impacts from developments need to be mitigated by the developers, but the way to do this should be through the laws such as required affordable units included with the project, developer fees paid (which the city/county or passed propositions can dedicate to arts, transportation etc.).

When you have an appeals process that allow special interest groups to hold up projects and then receive a ransom to release same, the system isn’t working IMO.

The development by itself was a positive for the community. They were already providing 23 BMR units that did not exist before. Everything after that was purely greed by Calle 24. Their private acts negatively impact the community.

I agree the proposed development is a positive (which I’m glad should now proceed), but also posed negative consequences for the existing community. Preserving 8 households as bulwark against displacement is an undeniable positive.

Without the statute before me, it’s hard to say whether the language clearly precludes a reading of something so “ephemeral” as gentrification as coming within the ambit of the kind of impacts addressed by CEQA as first raised in the Miller Electric property but it’s an interesting question. The ad hoc resolutions being worked out are IMO preferable to litigating the issue.

If I am a techie that moved to SF and into my brand new condo in the Mission circa 2013, seems like I qualify under “that which is there”, but I don’t see how this project is going to have a negative impact on me, please explain.

Hard to see this as a win when you consider the second-order effects. This has already been delayed 10 months, and we know the cost added by such delays is a main reason more projects aren’t proposed – projects that would likely add many more BMR units than the 8 preserved here. Project-by-project negotiation, unless the developer were asking for something extra, is a losing strategy.

“leasing 5,200 square feet of the development’s street-level space to a local arts organization* for $1 a year”

* = organization handpicked by MEDA and thus creating the equally-slimy nonprofit blackmarket for arts organizations. only the Old Ones survive. new artists stand no chance, becase MEDA et al oppose growing the market-rate stock of arts space. if you’re a young artist, these mission nonprofits are you enemy. move elsewhere.

Gotta love it when people complain that they’re disenfranchised because businesses are not moving into their neighborhood, then claim that they’re disenfranchised because businesses ARE moving into their neighborhood. Perpetual victimhood at its finest.

“…if affordable housing isn’t an option, then what? Arguello from Calle 24 reiterated his alternative suggestion, namely that the developers build a parking structure instead of housing. Weisbach said the city had rejected that idea outright; Arguello said in his conversations with officials, it seemed doable, because the area is part of the Latino Cultural District.

In the District, Arguello said, special rules apply.

“Everything that comes to this area has to meet the standards of the Latino Cultural District,” he said.”

The cultural district should be entirely ceremonial, without any influence on city planning.

A parking structure? How is that “progressive” in any way? What benefit will parking provide for low income local residents anyway? Doesn’t the City want to discourage more car use, especially in an ultra-dense neighborhood like the Mission?

Not that I support the parking structure idea, but as I understand it, many Latinos who were long-since priced out of the Mission still drive in from far-flung places throughout the Bay Area to experience the shops and culture. Maybe his thinking is to facilitate that.